The Sportpalast was the site of two historic speeches. In 1938, Hitler spoke on the Czech crisis. In 1943, the second and most famous speech was Joseph Goebbels’ call for total war.
On September 26, 1938, Hitler had given the Czechs an ultimatum: by 2 p.m. September 28, they had to accept German occupation of the Sudetenland. The evening of the ultimatum, Hitler harangued a tense audience of 15,000 in the Sportpalast, among them diplomats and journalists.

The American journalist William Shirer, sitting in the balcony directly above the German Chancellor, thought Hitler "in the worst state of excitement I’ve ever seen him in" (Kershaw, 2000). But Hitler’s speech was "a psychological masterpiece" according to Goebbels. Indeed, Hitler was in his element as he heaped scorn on the Czechoslovakian state and its president, Eduard Beneš (whom Winston Churchill called "Beans").
Beneš was determined, Hitler shouted, slowly to exterminate Germany. Referring to the memorandum he had presented to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, and the offer he had made to the Czechs, Hitler indicated that his tolerance of Beneš was now at an end. Cynically, Hitler praised Chamberlain for his peace efforts. He assured Chamberlain that he had no further territorial demands in Europe once the Sudeten problem was solved. He also guaranteed that he had no further interest in the Czech state. "We don't want any Czechs at all," he declared. The decision for peace rested with
Beneš: "He will either accept this offer and finally give freedom to the Germans, or we will take this freedom ourselves!" Hitler promised to lead a united people as first soldier. "We are determined. Herr Beneš may now choose," Hitler concluded. The mob in the hall, which had interrupted almost every sentence with fanatical applause, shouted, cheered, and chanted: "Führer command, we will follow!"
Hitler had worked himself into an almost orgasmic climax by the end of his speech. Goebbels, closing the meeting, pledged the loyalty of the German people to their Führer and declared, "a November 1918 will never be repeated." Hitler, according to Shirer, "looked up to him, a wild, eager expression in his eyes ... leaped to his feet and with a fanatical fire in his eyes...brought his right hand, after a grand sweep, pounding down on the table and yelled…’Ja.’ Then he slumped into his chair exhausted" (Kershaw, 2000). But five years later, when Goebbels delivered his total war speech, the loyalty of the German people was fraying.

Goebbels arrived at the Sportpalast at noon, February 18, 1943, in his bulletproof Mercedes, more tense than usual. He knew that he had to make the patently impossible sound possible.
The German sixth army had just suffered a catastrophic defeat at Stalingrad. For the first time, Germans were losing faith in their Führer en masse.
All 15,000 seats in the Sportpalast were filled, mainly with party members and functionaries. As Goebbels mounted the podium, his dark eyes glowed with the fanaticism of the born demagogue.

Goebbels called the Stalingrad debacle the "great alarm call of destiny," and a symbol of the heroic struggle against the "storm from the Steppes," that "horrific historic danger," which relegated "all former dangers facing the West to the shadows." Behind the onrushing Soviet divisions, Goebbels saw "the Jewish liquidation commandos," whom international Jewry were using to plunge the world into chaos.Again and again during this diatribe, thunderous applause broke out. But Goebbels was just getting warmed up.
Terror must be fought with terror, Goebbels cried. There could be no more bourgeois prudishness.
Goebbels asked his now hysterical audience whether they believed in their Führer and the total victory of German arms. An ear-splitting Ja! was the reply.
"Do you want total war? Do you want it, if necessary, more total and more radical than we could even imagine today?" he screamed, whereupon pandemonium broke out in the Sportpalast. "Now, Volk," Goebbels screeched, "arise and storm; break
loose!"
The Sportpalast had turned into a raving madhouse, and German radio transmitted the mass hysteria throughout the county. Goebbels rightly ranked the speech as the rhetorical masterpiece of his life. Cynical as always, he wrote in his diary, "This hour of idiocy! If I had said to the people, jump out the fourth floor of Columbushaus, they would have done that too."

Hitler’s Czech crisis speech and Goebbels’ total war speech were undoubtedly the most famous events in the history of the Sportpalast, but others were noteworthy: the boxing matches of Max Schmeling, as well as the concerts of Herbert von Karajan, rock group Deep Purple, and sex-machine James Brown. Indeed, the Sportpalast had been a venue for political and entertainment spectacles from the day it was built.
Construction of the Sportpalast began November 17, 1910, and was completed thirteen months later. The first show was an ice-skating revue. During the Weimar Republic, all of the political parties, including the Nazis, held rallies in the Sportpalast.
On January 30, 1944, allied bombs blasted and burned the Sportpalast to its foundations. In the early 1950’s it was rebuilt, albeit less elaborately. But it could not withstand the competition of the Deutschlandhalle, and in 1973 it was razed. The sarcastically nicknamed Sozialpalast, a concrete block with 514 apartments and 2,000 tenants, replaced the Sportpalast. Once hailed as the most beautiful housing project in Berlin, the Sozialpalast acquired a dicey reputation as building defects, neglect, vandalism, and criminality reduced it to an eyesore.

Hitler speaks in the Sportpalast, September 26, 1938:

"I am grateful to Mister Chamberlain for all his efforts. I have
further assured him, and I repeat now, that when this problem is solved, there
will be no territorial problems for Germany in Europe.&quot

We have armed to such an extent as the
world has never before seen. I offered disarmament as long as I could. But
when it was no longer wanted, to be sure, I did not embrace half-measures.
I am a National Socialist and an old German front soldier. If they don't
want a disarmed world--good. Then, German Volk, you take up your weapons.
Germany can be proud of its Wehrmacht. In the last five years I have
re-armed. I have spent millions doing it and the German Volk must now know
this. I have made efforts to create the newest army with the most modern
weapons anywhere. I commanded my friend Göring to create for me an air
force that can protect Germany from any conceivable attack. And so we
built a Wehrmacht of which today the German Volk can be proud and which
the world can respect, whenever it appears. We have created the best air
defenses and the best tank defenses on earth... For five years we worked
night and day. But in a single area I succeeded in achieving an
understanding. I will speak of this directly. Yet despite the
understanding I pursued my thoughts about arms limitation and disarmament
politics. In this year I have practiced the politics of peace. I
confronted all apparently impossible problems forcefully in order to solve them
peacefully, even if there was danger of Germans being forced to make
small or large sacrifices. I am myself a front soldier and know how
terrible war is. I wanted to spare the German Volk. Therefore, I have
confronted problem after problem with the firm intention of settling
everything peacefully wherever possible.

On February 10, 1933, Hitler spoke publicly for the first time as Reich
Chancellor in the Sportpalast. The speech was broadcast by radio throughout
Germany. The ecstatic announcer says that there is more enthusiasm than he has
seen at any other Sportpalast gathering. He recounts the difficult days of
November 1918 and 1919, and heaps praise on National Socialism. Then Hitler begins:

German comrades, ladies and gentlemen!
On January 30th of this year, the new national
government was formed. I and therefore the National Socialist Movement serve as
advisors. The first and best item: we don’t want to lie or deceive. For this
reason, I have refused to stand in front of this Volk and make cheap promises.
I know that if the graves of those who fought and died for Germany opened, the ghosts of
the past would hover behind us. All of the great men of our history, I know,
would stand behind us, looking at our work and our deeds. For fourteen years
the party of disintegration, of the November Revolution, has seduced, abused,
disintegrated, and dissolved the German Volk. Thus I am not presumptuous to
stand before the nation and swear: German Volk, give us four years, then direct
and judge us. German Volk, give us four years and I vow that I will leave this
office just as I entered it. I didn’t accept the job for salary and reward, but
because you wanted me. Indeed, I cannot abandon the faith in my Volk, cannot
abandon my conviction that this nation will rise once again. I cannot distance
myself from my love for my Volk. I am rock solid in my belief that the hour
will come when the millions who curse us today will stand behind us. We will all
greet our collectively created, painfully fought-for new German Reich of
greatness and honor, of strength and the splendor of righteousness. Amen.